Ed Henry says people ‘freaked out’ over normal questions from Fox News

Since jumping from CNN in June, Fox News' chief White House correspondent, Ed Henry, has been the target of a few tongue-lashings from White House press secretary Jay Carney--including one during President Obama's contentious debt reduction talks with Congress in late July.

In a Q&A with Adweek this week, Henry dismissed the notion that Fox News has a conservative bias.

"I know what people say about Fox and about what they say is a tilt to the right," Henry said. "Meanwhile, the reporters I know, like Bret Baier, are right down the middle and are tough on everybody."

Henry also scoffed at the idea that he's changed since jumping to CNN's rival. "I asked tough questions of the Obama White House when I was at CNN and nobody freaked out," he said. "I start asking tough questions at Fox and everybody freaked out."

He also denied that executives at Fox have been behind his line of questioning or feeding him talking points for White House press briefings.

"Absolutely not," Henry said. "My first day at Fox, President Obama gave a primetime address to the nation. That would have been a great chance for Roger Ailes or someone to say, 'Hey, Ed, there is going to be a lot of people watching tonight, maybe you should hit Obama on this or that.' I didn't get a phone call from anyone. I didn't get an email from anyone. But what I did get was, we want you to be front and center tonight. I was on with Bret Baier, not Sean Hannity or some of the opinion anchors we have."

He added: "Next morning ratings came out, and Fox had about 4 million viewers. CNN had about 2 million."

In July, on his third official day with Fox News, Henry pressed Carney on the president's debt reduction plan, asking if the administration planned to file a compromise proposal--the offer briefly accepted by Speaker of the House John Boehner--with the Congressional Budget Office.

"Look, I know you're creating a thing here for Fox," Carney shot back.

"That's not what I'm doing," Henry responded. "And you know better than that."

The exchange followed a similarly testy one the day before, and underscored the Obama administration's icy, often contentious relationship with Fox News.

(Via Mediaite)